Free I Love You to Death by Natalie Ward Page A

think it’s the only thing that keeps me sane. It’s hard to believe that a combination of sound and silence can have such an effect on you. But it can. And it can affect you in ways you never thought possible.
    It can make you smile. It can make you cry. It can make your heart stop and it can make your heart race. It can make you feel things you never even realised were inside of you. And it can stop you in your tracks before you even realise what’s happening.
    Watching someone create music like that is amazing. Seeing, feeling someone have that affect on you, on a whole room full of people….it’s unbelievable, indescribable, breath taking. There’s no other way to say it. It’s why I love watching and listening to live music. Why I love going to see a band play, no matter if it’s a huge concert or a tiny pub.
    It’s just always had that effect on me and for a second, it almost lets me forget everything else.
    ∞
    Selena was my mom’s baby sister. I never knew my grandparents on mom’s side because they had both died long before I was born. Growing up with an older brother and my Dad, I always longed for the girlie things. Someone to go shopping with, to talk to about boys, someone to ask about all the stuff my Dad was only going to be too embarrassed to talk about. I remember watching Grace and her mom when we were kids and being envious of their bond, their connection. Although I was very close to my Dad, there was still a hidden longing to have my mom, even if it was something I’d never grown up having. But, Selena did that for me, she took on that role and helped fill the gap of my mom not being there. She did a lot more too. She was the mother I never had, and the best friend and confidant I needed. We were very close and I loved her very much.
    She lived in Boston but I would still see her pretty regularly. Every couple of weeks I’d go up and stay with her. She was younger than my Mom, so it was easy for us to grow close. And we used to talk about everything. She knew about the teasing at school when I was a kid, she even tried to talk to the teachers for me. She knew about Grace and what she did. She knew all about Adam too, she was the one who’d told me to be prepared, to make sure I had protection. She didn’t judge and she didn’t criticise, she was just there for me to talk to.
    She was also the first person to introduce me to music, really introduce me and show me what it was all about. She taught me what music could do to you, how it could change you. My Dad had always been into the soft rock kind of stuff. My brother on the other hand, he was into rap and heavy metal. I grew up never really forming my own tastes or ideas about it, just listened to whatever they liked or put on. Selena changed all of that for me. She actually played the piano, really well. She probably could have done something with it, but instead just chose to play and enjoy it, teach it to the kids at the school she worked at. It’s not the only thing she was in to though. She also introduced me to so much punk and alternative music that from time to time I had to ask her, "Why the hell do you play so much classical?"
    She would always laugh and say, "Don’t ever be a music snob Ash, there’s something in every piece, always something, even the stuff Seth and your Dad listen too. You can always learn, feel, and get something from it."
    I never heard such a wide range of music as when I was with Selena.
    And she was right, there was always something to be learnt or gained from a piece of music, always. It may not move you in ways like other pieces would, but it would still do something to you, and really that’s what mattered, that it affected you, that you reacted in some way, even if it was only in a small way.
    ∞
    When I leave work this afternoon, there’s something in my locker.
    It’s a flyer and a cupcake.
    My heart clenches as the memory of a band flyer comes rushing back to me. This one however has a